


Am7

by offbrandgizmo



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Piano, Relationship Study, Theo plays piano, background Morey, because everything I write now is a study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 05:49:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15575133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/offbrandgizmo/pseuds/offbrandgizmo
Summary: He finds it past the field and back inside the school, down a narrow hallway and in a room on the end. It’s almost like it’s tucked away in some shadowed, little-used corner; he knew Beacon Hills High School had a music room, but he’d never known anyone to use it.The sounds that are coming from it now, though, he can’t ignore. They’re too beautiful.





	Am7

It’s when lacrosse becomes too much that it happens. When everything that finally seemed settled, and perfect, and right gets shattered to bits in an instant, the dust that’s taken months to settle getting blown back up in his face. Because he took up lacrosse to have an outlet for his anger, but sometimes, as with all things, it wins out, bubbling to the surface like an unwatched pot. He can barely get a lid on it before it all boils over.

The solution is something Theo taught him—a lot of things these days are somehow underlined with _Theo_ _,_  in some small way—to focus on something else, some background noise, to take him out of the moment and allay some of the rising anger.

So when a strong shove from an opponent in a practice match sends him landing badly on his ankle, and he grits his teeth a little too hard trying to keep back the claws, he sends pain ricocheting through his gums fast enough to give him an immediate headache. He takes a deep breath and a moment to lie on the ground, braced just shy of having his face buried in the dirt, and he searches. He blinks his eyes shut and tries to find that _something else_ to distract him.

He finds it past the field and back inside the school, down a narrow hallway and in a room on the end. It’s almost like it’s tucked away in some shadowed, little-used corner; he knew Beacon Hills High School had a music room, but he’d never known anyone to use it.

The sounds that are coming from it now, though, he can’t ignore. They’re too beautiful.

Someone’s playing the piano, and they’re playing _well._ Liam wouldn’t have a hope in hell of knowing what it is they’re playing—his parents had enrolled him in guitar lessons for about five seconds as an outlet after the diagnosis, but it didn’t take, and music never had been much within his realm of interests. But something about what he’s hearing takes his breath and jams it somewhere beneath his ribcage as the melancholic melody floods him.

Whoever’s playing is in complete control, and Liam can almost _feel_ the pressure of fingers pressing keys, distinct and deliberate. After a moment he feels like he can breathe again, and all at once he wants nothing more than for lacrosse practice to be over so that he can follow it, because it feels like the pavement could bend to that sound and make it the heart of everything.

Somehow he feels like even if he tried, he’d never really be able to catch it.

* * *

Whoever it was is long gone by the time Coach lets them go—though not without dishing out a ‘motivational reprimand’ that Liam doesn’t really understand much of, other than the fact that he wasn’t very focused during the last half of practice, which he already knows full well.

But really, if anybody else had heard _that,_ they wouldn’t have been able to blame him. Surely.

He wishes he could say that the song stayed stuck in his head. That as Mason drove him home, he stared out of the window from the back seat not just to avoid seeing his best friend and his boyfriend being all touchy-feely, but because he was connecting each beat and staccato rhythm to a different tree, a different dip in the road, a different street sign. But the melody’s long gone, elusivity having scraped it from his mind before he had a chance to commit it to memory.

It makes him feel just a little bit empty.

* * *

That night, when he can’t get the ghost of it out of his head long enough to get in any decent study or sleep, he turns to the group chat for distraction from the itch. He figures Mason and Corey are probably still up because they’re probably still together, even though it’s reaching past midnight.

 **Liam D.** **  
** _Have they started music classes at school or something_

 **Corey B.** ****  
_don’t think so_ _  
_ _why???_

 **Mason H.** **  
** _Can confirm they haven’t. Why?_ _  
__You wanna pick up the guitar again?_

 **Liam D.** ****  
_Fuck no_ ****  
_I just_  
_I heard someone playing the piano in the music rooms today_  
_And I got kinda mad during lacrosse practice_

 **Corey B.** ****  
_I saw that_ _  
_ _I was gonna ask if you were okay but you looked sort of spaced out afterwards_

 **Liam D.** **  
** _I dunno why but it sort of helped stop me from shifting yknow_

 **Mason H.** ****  
_I don’t_  
_But sure_ _  
__Do you know who it was?_

 **Liam D.** ****  
_I went to look for them afterwards but they were gone_ _  
_ _And I have no idea what the song was_

 **Mason H.** ****  
_Huh_  
_Was it like, the piano in general that calmed you down_ _  
__Or the song?_

 **Liam D.** **  
** _Idk but I think it was the playing_

Liam’s not sure if that answers Mason’s question, but he doesn’t want to straight up admit that he’s pretty sure it was the way the person played, not the instrument or the song. Like whoever was playing, with fingers that all told individual masterpiece stories, was pinning the notes to Liam at the same time, but with the little thumbtacks that don’t really hurt that much. And because Liam’s body kept healing around the puncture marks, the notes became permanent fixtures before he had the chance to even consider getting them out.

He’s not sure he would even given the possibility, but music’s never done this to him before.

He looks down at his phone again when it vibrates in his hand.

 **Theo R.** **  
** _Can all of you go the fuck to sleep?_

Liam doesn’t have a chance to respond before his phone vibrates again twice, the second vibration cutting off the first before it can finish.

 **Corey B.** **  
** _no_

 **Mason H.** **  
** _No_

He tries to bite back a laugh but a hiss of air makes it out from between his teeth. He types out a response but hears Theo’s low muttering, muffled by the walls, before he can hit send.

‘Don’t you fucking _dare,_ Dunbar.’

He rolls his eyes.

 **Liam D.**  
_No._

A second later, there’s another _bzz._

 **Theo R.** **  
** _I’ve killed before and I’ll do it again._

 **Corey B.** **  
** _I’ll tell the sheriff_

 **Mason H.** ****  
_I’ll do you one better_ _  
_ _I’ll tell Melissa_

 **Theo R.** **  
** _I’m shaking._

He’s not. If he was, Liam would probably feel it from across the hall.

* * *

It comes back to him in his sleep, less the tune itself and more the placating wave it washed over him during practice. It’s wispy and about as easy to hold as liquid would be clamped inside a fist. But the form it takes, like some kind of airy smoke, curls around his clenched hands and eases them open like silk. It gestures, coaxes him, tells him not to square his shoulders against the black, inky holes he usually sees in his dreams. To let them engulf him.

He doesn’t know why he trusts it, but he does.

He wakes up panting and sweating through his clothes, and the calm that had settled in him in the hours since practice gets tainted by the dregs of a nightmare, no longer a trusted and trusting lull, but rather the _thing_ that made him lenient enough to surrender to the bad dreams he’d been staving off in the first place. Still, he doesn’t think it has the effect on him that it’s supposed to, not quite. He’s used to trust being more than just _I’ll let you borrow something meaningless,_ and less than _I’d die for you_ —because he won’t.

Trust isn’t simple in their lives. Not anymore. Even the good things aren’t always good. And the bad things aren’t always—

He comes to his senses then, rolling over to pull the covers closer. He curls his knees upwards and listens for any sign that Theo heard him from the next room over. The staccato rhythm of his heartbeat assures him, steady as it is—constantly—that the chimera is sleeping. Still, it’s far from soundly—never soundly, not Theo. Always terrified. Theo might as well be synonymous with terror. The meaning of the word’s just changed over time.

Liam grabs the thought that suggests he curls up with Theo to chase both their nightmares away and claws it to pieces, locking it away again, because it’s not the first time. It’s never the first time with them. Their firsts have run out, for the most part. Nothing will ever be _the first_ again, if only because he and Theo are practically mirrors of one another now. They fall into repetition to fend off trauma.

Liam’s first kiss is as much Theo’s first kiss even though Liam’s fairly sure Theo’s _never_ been kissed. He doesn’t know how it works, but it’s like they have no uncharted territory, like they have each other all figured out, and like they each make up for everything the other lacks. He loves it, but he hates it, too, because it’s isolating. He’s entirely responsible for Theo—and that means Theo is entirely responsible for him, too. And that’s a forced trust that neither of them will ever be rid of.

They were never even asked if they were okay with that in the first place. It’s why trust can’t be easy, not anymore, and especially not for them. It has to be complex so that maybe, just maybe, they can maintain some semblance of control. God knows they need it, and they all-but-always find it in each other.

He slips back into sleep wondering if he’s okay with that.

(He might be.)

* * *

He starts hearing it regularly, the same pattern of _push_ and _pull_ against piano keys, but he keeps missing the person playing it even when he bolts from lacrosse practice early one afternoon to chase them down. It’s a nominal attempt at best. At this point it’s become an in-joke, that Liam’s hearing things, even though he knows Corey’s heard it too, during practice.

He makes a mental note to get Theo on his side, as well, because _surely_ the chimera—being as perceptive and unendingly aware as he is—has heard something, too, even though he’s usually not around when Liam and Corey have practice. Liam know he sticks around sometimes, even if he’s just loitering somewhere in a classroom getting extra study done, because Theo’s kind of a nerd, and he’s way too careful to not be hyper-aware of his surroundings precisely all the time.

It’s why Liam can never surprise him—and he’s tried.

* * *

‘Did you ever play any instruments?’ Liam asks, tossing the PlayStation controller on the bed beside him as he flops onto his back. ‘I mean, did you ever get the chance?’

Theo gets that look about him, from where he’s sitting on the floor, one knee tucked up into his chest and the other lax, a misrepresentation of how he’s actually feeling. It’s guarded Theo; it’s I-think-this-might-be-a-test-and-I-don’t-know-the-right-answer Theo.

For Liam, that’s pretty much the clear as glass indicator that he needs to reconsider his words.

‘I played guitar for about a week, after I was diagnosed with IED,’ he says, because sharing something of his is always a good place to start in getting Theo to open up and settle down. ‘Until I smashed the guitar out of frustration because my hands weren’t big enough to play barre chords.’ He winces up at the ceiling before glancing over to check on the chimera.

Theo’s arm is hiding most of his face, but Liam can see the way his cheekbones are higher, betraying the fact that he’s smiling, at least a little.

‘Littlewolf, little hands,’ he says, cocking one eyebrow and revealing a smirk. ‘Little d—’

Liam’s bare foot coming to whack him in the side of the head cuts him off. Theo makes a face and shoves it away.

After a moment of gradual silence, he speaks.

‘Started when I was a young, before… well, before it all,’ he waves a hand in the air haphazardly, and Liam knows then that he feels at least minimally safer than he did before. He doesn’t meet Liam’s eyes, but he keeps speaking. ‘It was fun. Tara started out teaching me some basic chords and scales before I got too good for her to teach me anything else,’ he gets this little smile-smirk-Theo-expression on his face, then. One that means he’s not so caught up in the regret that he can’t see past it.

The surface of Liam’s skin and something much, much deeper inside his chest feels warm. Almost too hot, really.

When Theo doesn’t elaborate, Liam blinks a few times. ‘Wait, but what did you play?’

Theo stares at Liam for a moment, face deliberately blank. Liam knows his tells, like the tiny twitch of the upper end of his left eyebrow. But he waits, waits for either the quip or the dishonesty before he decides whether or not to call him out.

Theo looks away. ‘Music,’ he says.

He dodges the pillow Liam throws at his face. Then he dodges Liam’s questions for the rest of the night.

* * *

It’s a week later, when he’s in the locker room with his shirt half pulled on after practice, that he finally catches hold of the frayed edges of the silken sound. And once it’s there, clamped beneath whitened knuckles, he won’t _—can’t—_ let go. The piano drifts and swirls above his head, almost like an opaque lure, hardly real.

He runs.

Corey doesn’t stop him when he darts by and out of the room. Liam keeps one hand skimming the walls as he keeps his pace, but something slows him down, because he just _knows_ he’s got it this time. He knows they’ll be there.

_(That he’ll be there, maybe-just-maybe.)_

And then he’s in the hallway, and the door is open down the end. It’s a corner where the light doesn’t reach, where the dust collects and settles in strange patterns. He feels out of place because he’s supposed to be the human equivalent of a repeating time bomb, and he’d surely disrupt anything that ever managed to be peaceful. Especially here. Especially when it’s maybe, probably, _him—_

He’s got one hand on the frame of the door, steadying him as he watches paragon fingers dance over keys. And when he sees Theo _—finally, confirmed, yes, he knew it, didn’t he know it?—_ his breath feels like it’s punctured right out from his lungs.

Theo’s back is taught, like a bow ready for release, but he still moves with his hands as they command the melody, his body a steady metronome. He makes it look sharp, and terse, almost clumsy, for all that the sound might just be the single most graceful thing Liam’s ever heard. Especially coming from Theo, who’s all grit and grime and bloodied hands.

He wants to shut his eyes, but he stares at Theo long enough that it feels like watching him brings a similar kind of darkness, a similar kind of pause. He might as well have his eyes shut, looking at Theo, because their brand of trust means they’re practically blind around each other anyway. Because their trust is all or nothing, and they chose _all_ so long ago that it doesn’t even really cross their minds anymore.

Except for moments like this one.

Because this is new. But this is Theo. So very, very Theo.

Theo, the hurricane, the unnatural walking disaster, Liam’s responsibility. Theo, to be associated with death and regret and the dark. And sure, the melody isn’t exactly an _uplifting_ one, but Liam would like to think that it sounds a little like Theo’s soul, and he knows Theo’s soul isn’t dark. Maybe it was. But it isn’t now.

Theo plays the song through, to his credit. Liam knows that Theo would have heard him coming from the other side of the school. Something funny tickles in the back of Liam’s throat when he realises that Theo obviously decided he was somehow ready for Liam to know _—to find him?_

_(Or, god forbid he get his hopes up—to know him?)_

Maybe Theo’s worth getting his hopes up for. Liam’s pretty sure hope usually comes before trust, but trust was the precursor to their whole relationship. It had to be.

Theo turns, holding himself up with one arm resting on the piano stool as he cranes his neck to meet Liam’s eyes from across the room.

‘I played piano, Littlewolf,’ he says. It’s almost wistful, which is something too translucent to be coming out of Theo.

Liam’s brow crinkles enough that he feels it in his nose. Because he hates when Theo does that, when he talks about himself in past tense.

‘You play piano,’ he corrects, saying it like he’s just mirroring Theo and not trying to coax him into the present as he steps into the room. He crosses the threshold until he’s resting one hand lightly _—because forest fire Liam can’t afford to break something that’s bringing Theo something good—_ on the piano.

‘I,’ Theo coughs under what he probably feels is scrutiny, ‘I do.’

Liam smiles at him, meeting his eyes and waiting. Because Theo’s going to smile back, and he knows it, because _he knows Theo._

(It still doesn’t help the fact that when Theo does break into a subtle, almost-grimace smile, Liam wants to kiss it off his face.)

He turns away and looks down at the keys. He thinks that maybe Theo’s scared of openly playing because, from up here, the white and black bars almost look a little like a cage. If Theo plays, maybe he’s revealing some of his cage. Some of what keeps him stuck in the bad. Some of what keeps him tossing and turning and whimpering his way through nightmares.

It’s a vulnerability Liam’s surprised Theo’s allowing himself to show. The recognition causes his heart to swell.

He grazes the keys lightly _—cold—_ with the flat of a fingertip.

‘Show me something?’ he says.

Theo just stares at him for a while. It’s quiet, especially given that they’re in a room that’s supposed to house music. But then again, maybe the dust keeps the unnecessary static of white noise thoughts muffled enough to allow actual, unfiltered peace. Maybe that’s what he likes about it.

Theo’s fingers rise and fall back into place on the piano. He presses down, and with a gentle force Liam can only hope he might reserve for him one day, pulls a melancholic and crystalline sound up and into the air.

‘What’s that?’ Liam breathes.

Theo stares. Theo stares, and doesn’t take his eyes off him.

‘A minor seventh,’ he says.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing this fic was like dancing.
> 
> It started out in a shocking state. I hope I made it into something a little nice. It was a strange mix of my prose-heavy style and... something normal, haha.
> 
> Hope you liked it! Find me @offbrandgizmo on Tumblr!


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